Typical freeloader OWS philosophy. If you don't pay off your student load someone else will have to in one way or another. It's people like you who started the housing crisis (w/ help from the democrats) by buying houses you couldn't afford.

Just change your name and the name on your degree. Then declare yourself pre-name change (the debtor) legally dead. The US government is so inept and incompetent you'll probably get away with it.

I have sympathy for student debt holders just like most people in the West who have debt. They thought infinite growth would eventually paid it off but alas the universe has limits to resources and pyramid scheme logic which found its way into Western thought in recent years certainly didn't help.

I agree, used bookstores and libraries were working just fine until I was told that I needed to obtain some sort of authorized certification of achievement. At 17 I wasn't developed enough to seek out an intellectual path that did not involve hyper-inflated tuition fees. All forms of education have been commodified and it is difficult for a child to find an adult willing to teach them much of anything without charging them per credit hour.

Education should be free from KG to PG (Kinder Garden to Post Graduate) for every child- privileged or underprivileged. Trade in Education must stop. It should be state's responsibility to create educational infrastructure so that every child can get access to quality education in his/ her own locality.

I would forgive the loan if you kiss the foot of the liberal professor that filled your mush brain with the idea to ask for a student loan and sign the loan agreement. If you signed the loan agreement then you need to give back your diploma because you graduated as an idiot.

I went to a FAFSA meeting at my kids' high school the other night. Did you know that parents who own a company with up to 100 employees do not have to put that down as an asset? Yet a poor family has to put down every measly bank account. Unbelievable.

What we need is more fairness. We need the cost of a college education to be affordable so that these loans disappear for good.

if you want affordable college, then get the government out of the loan business!! the consumer would be picky, the college couldn't charge whatever it wants and get away with it.
notice: healthcare, housing, education--do you see the common thread??

this is true... but only for 5%, so i assume that's 5% of their student population,,, and such a small sample would not be a driver of prices. the fact is: colleges scare people into thinking they'll be impoverished if they don't go and pay high tuition.
i will refer to Peter Theil who co-founded pay pal and first funded Facebook and who is a lawyer and now runs hiw own venture capital in a NYT article he said he'd rather hire someone who's smart, ambitious and did not goto college because college "for most is an overpriced waste of time and merely a 4 year party"

I hear you, but considering the percentage of people who make it big without going to college I would take his advice cautiously. People who attend college make a lot more money over their lifetimes. It's all part of the discussion, however.

I am not sure that's true at all--the assertion is worthy of serious investigation and skepticism. the colleges certainly want to perpetuate that perception for sure, and they advertise it, in fact. but when you do the math, you lose out on 4 years of earning power in college (let's say 120k), and many grads are massively in debt--which erodes future earnings, another 120k. So you're starting 270k in the hole (interest). Joe the plumber or the pizza guy make more than 60-70% of college grads ever will. Joe is a plumber who hired some guys to work for him...same with pizza guy--ordinary business, nothing exceptional. I have the unique privilege of working with very many small and medium sized family businesses,,, many did not goto college, they started rather plain, unexciting businesses and fare far better than employed college grads (whom I also work with). Colleges won't tell anyone that there are other viable options that can yield the same or better financial result. And when someone points that fact out, the colleges then fall back on "intangible benefits."
I, like Peter Thiel, would rather hire an ambitious and smart non-college grad.

I definitely hear you and I don't think a college education is "the answer" for everyone. I also don't think college educated people are more valuable in any way than those not formally educated. The smartest man I ever knew was my grandfather and I don't think he even made it through high school, but the guy was brilliant.

If you think it's so stupid, have the government start providing loans for gasoline, and see what direction the gas prices go. Prices fluctuate in direct proportion to what people are able to pay - when people are prepared to pay more, the prices rise. The government loans allow people to pay more, so the colleges feel free to charge more. Not so stupid, really - basic economics.

I agree with getting the government out of the loan business. The fact that wealthy people can afford to pay the tuition has nothing to with driving up costs. Nothing. It has nothing to do with basic economics.

But there is no real risk in the student loan industry, since they can take everything you have except food stamps, and you can't declare bankruptcy on student debt. Student loans are extremely lucrative for the lender, even with a 9% default rate--they aren't really subsidized by taxpayers, the lenders make a killing from them.

No. Parents put down assets on the FAFSA form, and that, combined with their income, determine whether or not their child will get a grant from the Federal Government. A grant. There can be loans, too. So, how do you justify business owners being exempt from putting down their business as an asset?

I know how it works, I put two kids through college and filled out the forms. I don't justify it, it is simply the rules you play by for the free money you hope to get. I don't know what there standard is today for a grant, I was surprised to find in my year with two kids in college and just one lower middle class income we didn't qualify for much more then what amounted to book money.

No. It takes guts for a kid to say "Okay. I don't need to go to that fancy school where I can make connections that can get me the better jobs." It takes guts for a kid to believe they can succeed without that. That is the reason most kids want to go to those schools. They want the connections to elite society.

I'm not sure how much of success is due to college connections and how much is effort, grades, and what your major was. In the business world you may be right, if they made a good choice for their major. If that's the case take the risk and borrow.

I had a discussion with my kids, between what I'd saved and with them working part time we could get them through a state school without loans. One wanted to teach, the other was an art major, we didn't see the value of a private school with loans.

Is your child a drop out? Probably not. Listen, when the core subjects in a community college are tranferable to a 4 year university, and you can take care of most of the core in a community college at one third the price it makes perfect sense.

If you receive a BA or BS from the University of Virginia, for example, where the core subjects were taken at a Virginia community college, I think that big piece of paper from UVA prevails.

As far as I know it is an option for anyone who takes core subjects and isn't pursuing an applied degree. I'm fairly certain that almost every community college in every state has transferable core credits to any university in their state. You should ask your kid to research it with a counselor at your local community college....it's a heck of a lot cheaper, and if the credits transfer why pay more, even if you need to finance?

Kevabe, I still don't understand. Surely, the small business (I don't actually agree that 100 employees is a small business) has a value as an asset. The Feds want poor people to tap their assets. I don't understand. Why shouldn't a business owner have to tap their assets? I could forgive this rule if it was on a true small business of, say, up to 10 or 20 employees, but 100 employees? The business has to have a large value as an asset in that case, no? This would be a rich business owner, no? And, he'd be able to get federal taxpayer money to pay for his kids college? I don't get it. I'm sorry for ranting but I just don't get it.

"Fairness", aka "subsidy". Are you really this damn helpless? 75% of the country didn't go to college. Unless you're an idiot, and that appears to be your case, you can easily out-earn non-college graduates. Making the rest of the country pay for your education is what's UNFAIR. Are you too self-involved to figure that out?

Try this: 1) Be careful what school you attend; 2) Consider work/living at home/extending studies before whining; 3) Student something not idioitic - Celtic Studies, Sociology and Women's Studies won't help you earn a living. That matters if you go into debt.

Another hand out we can't afford. Hey, lets go take out a loan and then try to make it so we don't have to pay it back!!! That sounds like a great idea. What ever happened to personal responsibility? Why should they not have to pay back the same loans that I had to? Why should they get off when no one else ever has? What makes this generation special?

Slavery was supposedly ended by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, but slavery comes in many forms. In a very real sense, the 99% ARE treated as slaves by the 1%, but it's a more insidious, hidden form of slavery which many victims of the process never recognize. Debt slavery is, however, very real and should be recognized for what it is. The elimination of the student loan scam must be one of our major goals. I never had this problem due to good luck, being an only child, and careful planning, but many of my friends have been adversely impacted by this critical problem. I want their suffering to be ended.

If you signed a contract saying you'd pay it, stop being a little girl and live up to your word. Just because whatever schooling you received didn't work out, doesn't mean you don't owe the money. I gotta pay every month too.

I suspect that most people will pay and continue to pay but never actually manage to pay enough to get rid of the fucking thing (or at the very least be sporting more than a trio of grey hairs and wrinkles.)

Amen, If you don't want to take on the debt or don't consider the education to have value then don't go to college. My wife and I both paid for educations ourselves and what little we did borrow we paid back early so we could begin saving for a house and family.

Student loans were never about educating you. They are all about control. Why do you think they can never be discharged by a bankruptcy? Student loans put the government in your life for the next 20 years, the next knock on your door could be the government wanting it's cash, is that a nice feeling? You're right up there with tax cheats now, enjoy!

Why do you think the government guaranteed your loan? Do you really think blaming the bank for your slavery even makes sense? Blaming the bank is like an H addict blaming the needle for his problems, do you think the bank would have given your broke ass money without the government guaranteeing it?

Student loans will never be forgiven, no matter how much you whine, you are exactly where your government wants you, why would they give up that power over your life?

Not sure how it works. It was mentioned student loans cannot even be erased through bankruptcy. If you do that jail time, remember, prison rapes are rampant and the cops tend not to care. You might get pepper-sprayed for breathing in there. They will point a tazer at you for long minutes until you naturally flinch, then they fire. Hope they don't accidentally use bullets on you. The corporation that profits from your labor at 25 cents an hour will be laughing all the way to the bank. Oh, and prospects of getting hired again aren't too hot either.

Not even close. You need to stop watching so much TV. As an ex-inmate, I can tell you the worst part about jail is if you don't have a job(And, no you don't get 25 cents an hr), you will be bored out of your mind. Unless you've been there, you have no point in talking about it.

"The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners' work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself," says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being "an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps."

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. "This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors."

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

"Borrowers who can't or don't pay their debts can be sent to jail in more than one-third of states, the Wall Street Journal reports. Judges may issue a warrant when a borrower either misses court ordered payments or doesn't show up in court after being sued for payments on outstanding debt. Though there are no national statistics on the practice of jailing debtors, a WSJ analysis found that judges have issued more than 5,000 debt-related warrants since the beginning of 2010."

government backs loans because of a presumed social good. that view then was extrapolated to the extreme to become: every student should goto college, whether they're ready for it, whether they want to.
the non-dischargeable nature of the loan is so the taxpayer's not on the hook, but the student.
if you didn't want to pay it back, the only option would be to start again in a new country,,, it'd be hard for them to collect money under that circumstance, and a non-extraditing country renders a person completely off the hook.

have you ever tried to enforce a judgement across borders? it is very, very difficult. and besides, there are very few banks subject to those treaties. international money center banks yes. small community banks in south america, no. besides if you have cash, why would you use a bank? safety only, fear of loss or robbery.

i am not advocating doing this--i paid every penny back for a graduate education. but the "law" is not binding on foreign sovereign nations. the foreign country has to take a great interest in enforcing the US's "request" and, frankly, outside of europe or absent the threat of military action, most countries could care less what a US court or agency requests them to do. They've got their own issues, and are really hard to motivate to do another country's work. and if they don't extradite, forget about it. different scenario if the bank does alot of business in the US where it can suspend licenses for failure to comply, but there are hundreds of thousand of banks that don't have any US connection. that said, i am not convinced people really need banks anyway... they are conveniences and safe harbors.

Last week, newspapers in the Dominican Republic reported on the requirement for Dominican financial institutions to report accounts held by U.S. citizens. Below please find information released by the IRS regarding this new reporting requirement. For general information about tax requirements for U.S. citizens living abroad, please see the attached fact sheet from the IRS.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), enacted in 2010 as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, is an important development in U.S. efforts to combat tax evasion by U.S. persons holding investments in offshore accounts.

Under FATCA, certain U.S. taxpayers holding financial assets outside the United States must report those assets to the IRS. In addition, FATCA will require foreign financial institutions to report directly to the IRS certain information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, or by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest.

U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad should enroll in the Smart Travelers Enrollment Program (STEP) at the following website: https://travelregistration.state.gov. U.S. citizens without internet access may enroll directly at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate at their destination. By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the Embassy to contact them in case of emergency.

Updated information on travel and security may be obtained from the Department of State by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States and Canada or, for callers outside the United States and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. For further information, please consult the Worldwide Caution and other consular information, including Country Specific Information, for specific countries. These products and the latest international travel information for U.S. citizens are available on the Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet website at http://travel.state.gov.

For any emergencies involving American citizens in the Dominican Republic, please contact the American Citizens Services (ACS) Unit of the U.S. Embassy. The Consular Section Embassy is located at the corner of Cesar Nicolas Penson Street and Máximo Gómez Avenue, Santo Domingo, D.R.; telephone 809-731-4294; after hours emergency telephone 809-221-2171; ACS unit fax 809-689-6142; e-mail acssantodom@state.gov. For more information, visit our web page http://santodomingo.usembassy.gov.

I am well aware of the law's existence, but glad you shared with others. however the law's existence doesn't mean a country will uphold it or go to the efforts to enforce it... It's been front page news that Swiss banks have not yet turned over their info., even though they said they would. Lichtenstein, Panama, Monaco, Isle of Mann and Caymen are all well known havens that have given the US the middle finger--for them their secrecy is possibly a top 3 industry, and the 1% know that well--I know lawyers who focus on "asset protection" which means tax and liability protection by hiding in jurisdictions where the countries don't care what the US does.
As for dominican, the US previously administered it (and other caribbean countries) as an unincorporated territory until some time in the 70s. So there's a diplomatic alliance. Other sovereigns do not respond to or uphold this law.

Pamela's very old, that's when going to college was much cheaper than it is now in relation to what you could earn. at that time a college degree had genuine worth--employers wanted to hire you. now the degree is very common and has been devalued, and yet it costs tremendously more than what you can expect to earn, even in engineering, math, and the useful job-oriented majors.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started their companies in their garage. Joe the Plumber is stupid(I'm sorry, but he got famous for the wrong reason) The one thing all of your people have in common, is they are all owners. They either made or bought their way into where they are. These examples are invalid.

it doesn't matter where a company was started. joe the plumber is not cited for fame, but for the fact he makes 250k in the trades, i have friends too in the same situation. colleges and the government do not promote that fact. they are not invalid, these people created jobs for themselves... rather than relying on someone else's hand out of a job.
UPS delivery drivers make 80k to start and they don't' require college, they can become managers making 150k+, or union bosses stealing from pensions and strike funds making untold sums.

The reason why I said your examples are invalid is because they started their jobs, not got hired. That is what I'm talking about. I'm all about creating your own spot. But to get hired somewhere where you can make money these days(I'll throw UPS in as one of a few-and lessening- exceptions), you need a degree. I used to work in the restaurant industry. Over a decade in expierence, in different aspects of cuisine, and had my food service license. I couldn't get a job at more than a couple places because I didn't have a stupid piece of paper that said I went to school to learn how to cook. One of the worst part about it is, most of these people haven't a single clue what they are doing outside of the sterility of school.

Not what I heard. Law graduates with no experience are trading one employer off against the other in an "auction", typically starting at $140,000. I know. I saw it on a TV program, and a lawyer who works for Citigroup confirmed it, as a number of them had started there. They do nothing useful for the first two years, just training. After that, they leave the company for somewhere lucrative, getting a mid 6 figure salary. She said it really annoyed her, as they treat their long serving staff like rubbish going for these so called "hot shots".

the 100k + legal jobs are very rare. they comprise 3-5% for first years, the 95%, or more, are starting solidly below that. that is, if you can get a job in law--and very many cannot. it a field very radically oversupplied. my friend's alumni publication last months cover read "law school... is it worth it" and detailed the extremely dire situation most face from this highly esteemed school. boston university law students (and many others around the country) have asked their schools if they can drop out without a diploma in exchange for loan forgiveness...

Didn't see the show. However, because i know very many lawyers, and many have been laid off and whom are highly accomplished--some were partners who were "de-equitized"--and all have been laid off at least once, and several twice in their career (2001 or 2008 or both). the extremely rare cases that the show presents must contain only very special people, perhaps number one in their classes at very top schools.
My strong belief is that what you saw was propaganda TV paid for by someone trying to create an impression,,, perhaps the law schools themselves... when your highly ranked law school sends you your quarterly magazine and asks "is law school worth it?" and details the suffering and joblessness, and when many students have asked to drop out with debt forgiveness (reported in WSJ and NYT), and you personally know many laid off lawyers, then this TV show's presentation would seem completely off the mark, and an untrue or biased manipulation. It should be questioned. It is definitely not typical, nor an accurate or fair presentation of the state of the legal field--which is radically over-supplied.

What is the show? channel? production company? title? anything? etc.... I'd be curious.

Thanks for the info. The media does give this impression that young lawyers earn a fortune. Even the WSJ article I guess you are refering to mentions $160K to start and climbing quickly to over a million. I can read between the ines though. I can see that times are damn tough, and certainly sympathize with a young person who has trained hard, run up a big debt and is unemployed.

Looking around, the market seemed worse in the US than elsewhere. There seemed to be a lot of jobs going in Singapore and Australia for example. As for the TV program, I couldn't locate it. It was some time ago, around 2007, I think. I was not trying to be annoying. I genuinely thought young graduates in general in the US got very large paychecks. I did hear that Chelsea Clinton started on $400,000 for example.

yes, it is the misperceptions created by the schools and perhaps ABA in cohort with the media, or perhaps merely the media's attempt to garner attention, that's led many people to make very badly informed and misguided decisions about the profession (hence asking for debt forgiveness and to leave the school without the degree). my several friends (we talk about it all the time) are very angry as they earned nothing for 7 years, incurred tremendous debt slaving away for the right to slave away to make 60-70k, while many of their buddies without college work at various manufacturers or in the trades, and are now moving into management making 70-80k working 8 hours, plus they earned money for 7 years and don't have the debt. only the very large very selective firms pay those huge salaries and you have to be in top 10% of the class, and still many of that group don't get jobs there. my intent wasn't to correct you, but the dispelling of misperceptions on this my friends say is important--it might save the heartache/envy/ debt my friends experience--but they feel lucky to have jobs--which does seem odd for someone with such training. certainly in 2007 the job situation was drastically different too. now a good portion of the last 3.5 years of grads haven't been soaked up into the market because demand for legal services is shrinking.

chelsea seems worth every penny of that and more for her connections! she could get anyone on that show whenever she wants them. wow.